BA’s New Face in Bangkok
by Ian Webb

The new face of British Airways in Bangkok is Neil Ager, who came here in July 2009 having previously been stationed in Singapore.

Despite being in the aviation business he immediately strikes you as someone with both feet firmly on the ground. A rugby man, who still claims that he has a little while to go before he officially becomes a veteran, a rather sad title at the age of thirty five - he should worry – like the author he is a good northerner and hails from a place called Northwich in Cheshire, famous for, of all things, its salt mines.

He went to the University of Hull and took an international business degree which involved a year out of the four year course at a university in Western Australia. However, for an administrative reason that doesn’t matter, this converted into spending half that time at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, before returning to sunny Hull to take his finals.

By the time he graduated, young Neil already had travel in his blood and the procurement department of an airline called Britannia Airways, now owned by the Thomson Holidays, seemed a natural starting point for a career.  Britannia Airways ran a graduate training program and flew plane loads of British holidaymakers primarily to European and Mediterranean destinations from Luton.

In 2001, having by then decided that airlines were indeed for him, Neil moved to British Airways in their sales and pricing department, before in 2004 moving to become a corporate account manager, a fascinating business dealing with many of the major British “blue chip” companies and also the government. Four years in that led directly to Singapore and then his transfer to Bangkok as part of a regional reorganization.

British Airways these days is a far cry from the government-owned entity of the 1970s. It was originally formed in 1974 by the then Labour Government as an amalgam of the British Overseas Airways Corporation, British European Airways, Cambrian Airways and North East Airlines. It later acquired British Caledonian.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the British Prime Minister and she made the airline’s privatization one of her priorities. She installed John, later Lord, King to achieve it. Under King’s,  not entirely sanguine, leadership British Airways emerged a few years later as a major player on the world stage; a much leaner and fitter one, well equipped to ride the peaks and troughs of the airline business, which have in recent years taken their toll of a number of others.

Under its current and youthful new Chief Executive, Willie Walsh, an Irishman and former pilot with the Irish national carrier Aer Lingus, British Airways now serves 150 destinations and is not standing still.

Punctuality and baggage handing have been major efficiency drivers this year and in line with the policy of continuous reinvestment and modernization, both Club World and First Class are under going major refresher programs. In addition, British Airways fleet renewal program will continue to provide one of the most modern fleets in the world and reflect a balance between Airbus – especially the new A380 – and Boeing with their 787 Dreamliner.

At the time of writing the merger with the Spanish national carrier Iberia has just been announced. Both airlines will continue to operate under their own colours as separate entities but with a joint senior management structure.

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